A Satisfying InkTober

 

10/31/26 Green Lake Park. A fun experiment in mark-making.

Another InkTober is in the books!

10/26/26 I took the reference photo of this neighborhood church during a golden
hour walk a couple of months ago. I'm pleased by the way the pale yellow marker caught the 
light that had initially caught my eye. I pass this church nearly every day on my walks, but I'm
usually not attracted to drawing it. It was only that light that made it interesting.

With just a few exceptions, I did all sketches on location this year (thanks to one of the driest Octobers on record, which is otherwise not good news). That enabled me to include those sketches as part of my usual, everyday storytelling here. I always find InkTober most satisfying when I can incorporate the challenge seamlessly into my normal, everyday sketching life instead of as an add-on. Shown here are the few remaining sketches that I haven’t shown in previous posts. Some cutlines include process notes.

Although I started out with trepidation, committing to waterproof brush markers – first Staedtler and later Faber-Castell – turned out to be a big win. Devoting 31 consecutive days to the medium taught me how I like to use them, how I don’t, pushed me outside my comfort zone each day, and led to an interesting “a-ha” that I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

One goal for this challenge was to practice sketching with values rather than hues (a concept I’ve been interested in all year). Using a limited palette of markers chosen by tone and temperature (a warm and a cool of light, mid- and dark tones) was frustrating at times but was ultimately informative and intriguing. It forced me to push past my usual matchy-matchy tendency with hues based on “reality” and look first for values instead. Another win!

10/21/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

On the last two days, I pulled out all stops and embraced the marks that markers make – whether I like them or not. At Café Blameless (last one in this post), to show the brilliant window against the dark interior, I filled the background with the streaky marker look I have always detested. On the upside, I discovered I really enjoy blue as an alternative to gray for shading.

Finally, on a cold but sunny Halloween afternoon, I took my markers to Green Lake Park to experiment with mark-making (top of post). Dense with foliage, the darkness of this scene was difficult to convey. I like the haphazard hatching of leaves, but the vertical lines underneath (cars, tennis court, more trees, and other non-descript darkness) are less than successful. It was total fun, though, having a what-the-hell experimental attitude.

Has InkTober made me want to keep using brush markers for urban sketching? Probably not – at least not exclusively as I used them all month. But the challenge definitely opened my mind to their potential as a useful addition to my kit. I’m looking forward to further explorations ahead!

10/27/26 This day was a complete outlier. I had just received some new Field Notes from Draplin Design Co. containing funky pages printed with various abstract patterns that begged to be colored! I used the same palette of Pitt Artist Pens that I'd been using for InkTober to try a page.

10/28/26 When layered over other colors, the light blue Pitt makes a nice cool midtone for shadows.
(photo reference)

10/29/26 The morning before my noon colonoscopy, I was feeling dizzy and shaky, probably from low blood sugar and lack of sleep, but I pushed through this sketch anyway. I put in the foreground plants as an afterthought after I'd already drawn the frame, making for a clumsy composition. Looking at it now, though, I'm pleased by the value range I got from just five markers. (reference photo)

10/30/26 Cafe Blameless, Bryant neighborhood. Embracing the marker-y look I don't like!

Jack and Sally

 

10/27/26 Great pumpkins of Maple Leaf (I took the easy way out on Jack and sketched his backside)

After Jack and Sally, Maple Leaf’s great pumpkins, completed their competitive weigh-ins, grower Brooke still had one more important task for her mammoth squashes: Carving them for Halloween! I can’t imagine how much work it is to dig out all the guts and seeds from such humongous pumpkins! I appreciate all she does to give our neighborhood this annual Halloween highlight.

Between rain showers a few days ago, I walked by to see the result. Apparently they are characters from Jurassic Park and Ice Age, which I’m not familiar with, so I thought Jack resembled Jimothy, the famous raccoon. In any case, I didn’t do justice to all the intricate carving and details that went into both pumpkins. Maple Leaf Pumpkins’ Instagram account has a video of them lighted at night, which shows their designs better than my photos do.

InkTober note: I have one more post planned for tomorrow with the last of my InkTober sketches, and then onward to Pencilvember! Happy Halloween!

Jack... as Jimothy?

Jurassic-inspired Sally

Going Dark – and Darker

 

10/26/26 Cd'A Museum Aquarelle pencils, Neocolor II crayons and F-C Pitt Artist Brush Pens (photo reference)

With water-soluble pencils (and more recently crayons) as my primary color medium for many years now, I sometimes think I’ve gotten the darkest values dark enough while I’m on location. Then when I get home and put my sketchbook on the scanner, I realize that I could have pushed them even darker. The single biggest (and probably most important) lesson that markers have taught me this InkTober is that it never hurts (and often helps) for the darks to go even darker – and markers make that easier and faster than my usual water-soluble materials.

For this sketch, I used a photo reference so that I could focus on experimenting. First I used water-soluble pencils and crayons in my usual way. Then I leaned in hard with Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pens for the darkest areas under and behind the foreground tree. I didn’t like the abrupt, hard edges of the marker against the softness of the other media, so I tried to fuzz the transitions with more pencil and crayon (with mixed results).

I wanted to retain the paper's tooth showing through as bits of reflected light,
so I used an Indigo Necolor II.

For the background trees (detail at left), I wanted to avoid the solidity of markers, so I used a crayon in the same color as the Indigo marker. Using markers for trees will probably never appeal to me because I’d lose the tiny sparkles of white from the paper’s tooth that impart the look of foliage reflecting light.

To check this out, for the reddish-orange foreground bushes (detail below), I used a dark magenta marker in the deepest shadow area. I couldn’t get rid of that pasted-on look, and I think it would have been better to stay with crayons only.

I’m looking forward to experimenting further – and very happy now that I took the plunge to devote InkTober to markers!

The dark magenta shadow looks pasted on.

Life Drawing at the Octopus Bar

 

Jen had the right idea -- she kept right on drawing
the rest of us even as she posed!

10/25/26 Life drawing at the Octopus Bar

A new bar has opened in the Wallingford neighborhood with an interesting theme. With lots of “wood, ropes, handwritten letters, portholes, nautical charts, maps, cameras, suitcases, chains, anchors and anything rusty or shiny,” The Octopus Bar has multiple rooms decked out with nautical stuff that would be fun to sketch. The most fun offering, though, is free life drawing every Sunday evening!

I started out using a gray marker for shading,
but I found it to be too dark, so I switched to light blue later.

You won’t find pro models there. Instead, patrons volunteer to pose in return for a drink. Each pose is eight minutes with a short break halfway through – a manageable duration for amateurs. Not that I would know – I didn’t have the nerve to volunteer last Sunday, when I made my first visit there with Jen and Sasha. They both tried modeling for the first time and enjoyed it, which encouraged me to try it sometime!

What I like most about the Octopus Bar (compared to other bars) is that the music isn’t annoying or even overly loud (a very pleasant surprise). In addition, the lighting was bright enough that we could see what we were drawing – also surprising for a bar. I gave the manager positive feedback about both.

Friends Sarah and Kanchan portrayed a horror scene for their partnered pose!

I had a ball and will surely be back again. With good food and beverages to enjoy while sketching, it’s going to be a great wintertime sketching option.

I switched to colored pencils for the second set.
Ahhh... pencils, how I've missed you!

Back to the Halloween Parade

 

10/24/26 Maple Leaf Halloween Parade
The traffic cone was my favorite costume!

The drizzle that turned into rain didn’t deter the kids, dogs and their families who turned out for the Maple Leaf Halloween Parade. Beginning at Maple Leaf Park, the slow-moving parade eventually wound its way past neighborhood businesses and even homes along the route who gave out candy. Although I didn’t follow the parade as I have some years, I had fun catching what I could while everyone gathered at the park. I wished I’d snapped photos of the funny costumes, but I can either sketch or photograph but not both!

Greg and I always enjoyed watching the parade together. After he moved to memory care, I stopped going – I didn’t have the heart to go alone because I knew it would make me miss him (and feel sadness for all that he was missing).

This year I decided to go. I need to start doing things again that I used to enjoy with him. One of the hardest things about loss is that the parade goes on; I don’t want to keep missing it just because I miss him.

The banana man was taking pics of his wife and child, also dressed like bananas. I regret that I couldn't sketch the whole family!

Technical note: You can see a few raindrops here and there, but it was raining much harder than my sketchbook indicates. That's definitely a benefit of using waterproof markers like the Pitt Artist Brush Pens I used.

Sublime Sunrise

 

10/24/26 sunrise, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Light in my peripheral vision made me look up from my breakfast: a sublime sunrise! Letting my remaining coffee go cold, I dashed upstairs to catch as much color as I could. Sparse clouds formed intriguing stripes above Her Majesty. Minutes later, it all changed.

Putting this scanned image into my PC’s “skyscapito” folder, I found the last one I had made – sunset last February (below)! I had been waiting to accumulate a few more sketches before writing a blog post, but I didn’t make another until Saturday. Better late than never, I suppose, though I’m disappointed that I’ve fallen out of the skyscapito groove.

2/25/26 sunset, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Food Reviews (and Comments on AI)

 

4/6/26 quiche at Cloudy Cafe, Ballard

I have lots of pages from my daily sketch journal this year that I’ve been collecting in a folder, hoping to eventually find some kind of theme to make a cohesive blog post. I finally found one. You’ve seen plenty of pastries I’ve consumed, which may lead you to the conclusion that that’s the only food type I sketch (or eat!). Shown here are some foods I’ve eaten that are not pastries.

6/19/26 Xiao long bao at Supreme Dumplings, South Lake Union

Incidentally, I must tell you how I found Irwin’s Bakery & Café, where I enjoyed a very good hot croissant sandwich (called an “Eggel,” shown at end of post, because you can choose to get it on a bagel if you prefer). But first, some context:

7/26/26 avocado Benedict at Salt & Iron, Edmonds

If you’ll recall, a while back I talked about how I used ChatGPT to critique a couple of sketches. That novelty wore off immediately, and I never did it again. However, I have been using AI judiciously for other purposes, and the most productive has been for travel planning. For example, when I was planning my trip to the Bay Area last month, ChatGPT gave me an efficient itinerary for getting from San Jose to Palo Alto by train. It also offered useful tips on taking advantage of a shuttle instead of expending time and energy walking more than necessary on Stanford’s huge campus. It even gave me suggestions for the best places to have lunch on campus. It was all easily available information that I could have researched myself, piece by piece, but that would have taken hours. ChatGPT pulled it all together in a matter of seconds.

8/21/26 nigiri sushi at AA Sushi, Ballard

When I asked for it, it also gave me areas I should avoid on foot and others that were safe to walk in daylight. That type of information is harder to find by using basic Google searches.

8/24/26 nigiri sushi at Musashi, Wallingford (I deliberately purchased the same assortment as the few days prior at AA Sushi to compare the quality and cost. Musashi won on price, but it lacked presentation.)

In San Jose’s Japantown, which was filled with sushi restaurants, AI helped me find exactly the kind of menu and ambiance I like (I’m picky, and I had given it several specific criteria).

9/3/26 tuna salad croissant sandwich at Petit Pierre (Potato chips sounded like a novel, crunchy addition, but the premade, refrigerated sandwich rendered the chips soggy.)

Back to my croissant sandwich. In my endless quest for a “third place,” I sometimes ask AI for coffee shop suggestions, hoping it will find something new. Ho-hum – nothing. I’ve also been disappointed when the coffee might be great, but the pastries are plastic-wrapped (obviously not house-baked). Then I changed my request: “Find a bakery that also has a pleasant seating area, not just a takeout counter.” Irwin’s Bakery was one result (see the sandwich at end of post).

10/7/26 Cock-a-doodle-do appetizer at Noi Thai, Green Lake (The description of this dish didn't really interest me, but the photo was so beautiful that I couldn't resist ordering it; a friend helped me eat it.)

Though I’m still cautious in how I use it, I see AI’s place as an effective research tool.

10/11/26 soft bean burrito at Taco Time near the Amgen Helix Bridge (Some of the best food experiences are the ones that prompt long-forgotten memories -- even at Taco Time.)

10/22/26 hot croissant "Eggel" at Irwin's Bakery & Cafe, Wallingford